Description

The data set contains global fields of instantaneous 3-hourly values of three longwave (LW) surface radiative parameters derived with the Quality-Check LW (QCLW) algorithm of the NASA World Climate Research Programme/Global Energy and Water-Cycle Experiment (WCRP/GEWEX) Surface Radiation Budget (SRB) Project.There are a total of three parameters in these files as follows:1. Surface Downward Longwave Flux (DLF), 2. Surface Net Longwave Flux (NLF), and 3. Surface Clear Sky Downward Longwave Flux (CSDLF). These parameters were derived on a 3-hourly temporal resolution (i.e., a global instantaneous gridded field every 3 hours), namely, at UT hours 00, 03, 06, 09,12 15, 18, and 21 for every day of the month. The current version of the datasets is designated as Release 3.0. It covers a period of 24.5 years from July1983 to December 2007. The grid on which these fluxes are originally computed is a quasi-equal-area grid consisting of 44016 cells. The cell size is 1 deg. in latitude throughout and 1 deg. in longitude between 45N and 45S. Poleward of these latitudes, the cell size is progressively increased in longitude to accommodate a sufficient number of 30 km ISCCP pixels in each cell. This grid is also called the nested grid. The fluxes continued within these netCDF files have been regridded to a 1 degree latitude by 1 degree longitude equal-angle grid using a replication method.

DOI

Resources and Documentation

Earthdata Forum

VIEW RELATED INFORMATION

DATA CITATION POLICY

• How to cite ASDC data

GENERAL DOCUMENTATION

• ASDC Data and Information for SRB
• Department of Energy (DOE) National Center for Photovoltaics (NCPV)
• National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Renewable Resource Data Center (RReDC)
• Solar Energy International (SEI) - A non-profit (501 (c)3) organization whose mission is to provide education and technical assistance so that others will be empowered to use renewable energy technologies

HOW-TO

• Program to read SRB Release 3_QCLW_3 Hourly in netCDF - Direct File Download (.txt)

MICRO ARTICLE

• Earth Observing System Data and InformationSystem (EOSDIS) Article: "Absorption of Solar Radiation by Clouds: Observations versus Models"
• Earth Observing System Data and InformationSystem (EOSDIS) Article: A Long-Term TOA and Constrained Surface Radiation Budget Dataset Using Merged CERES, ERBE and ISCCP/SRB Products from the Past 30 Years

READ-ME

• SRB_REL3.0_QCLW_3HRLY (netCDF) - GEWEX Quality-Check Longwave 3-Hourly Readme File

Keywords